#writing

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him...A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it. ↗

— Roald Dahl

#freedom

Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven. ↗

— Walter Benjamin

#architecture

To what extent does anybody control his destiny? Life is very much like falling of the edge of a cliff. You have complete freedom to make all the choices you want to take on your way down. My characters choose to yearn and not lose hope even when the odds are completely against them. It doesn't make the landing at the end of that fall any less painful but, somehow, it helps them keep a little dignity their bone broken body. ↗

— Etgar Keret

#free-will #hope #humor #writing #freedom

He reads every book in his home but it is not enough. The country boy craves stories. He devours every poem and fable in his school and library. Still he hungers. For stories. ↗

— Jennifer Lanthier

#freedom-of-speech #journalism #prison #stamps #writing

Contention murders creativity and stupidity is in enmity with freethinking. ↗

— Joel T. McGrath

#writing #freedom

Unless the object of the singer’s affection is a vampire, surely what Hart means is unphotogenic. Only vampires are unphotographable, but affectionate ‘-enic’ rhymes are hard to come by. ↗

— Stephen Sondheim

#lyricism #my-funny-valentine #rhymes #songwriting #valentine

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it. ↗

— Witold Gombrowicz

#writing-craft-talent #life

The strongest should come first in comedy because once a character is really established as funny everything he does is funny. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#funny

Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity. ↗

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#art

I was impressed with Jack [Kerouac]’s commitment to serious writing at the expense of everything else in his life. At a time when the middle class was burgeoning with new homes, two-tone American cars, and black-and-white TVs, when American happiness was defined by upwardly mobile consumerism, Kerouac etched a different existence and he wrote in an original language. ↗

— Sterling Lord

#language #writing #home